New Delhi: Google took down over 1.7 billion ads in 2016 which were misleading and promoted ‘illegal products’ and ‘unrealistic’ offers, it said on Friday, at the release of its annual ‘Better Ads Report’.

“A free and open web is a vital resource for people and businesses around the world. But bad ads can ruin the online experience for everyone, pose a threat to users, Google’s partners, and the sustainability of the open web,” said Scott Spencer, director of product management, Sustainable Ads.

Google said it expanded its policies to better protect users from misleading and predatory offers and stepped up technology to spot and disable bad ads faster.

The report said most common inappropriate online ads were those for illegal products, adding that Google disabled over 68 million bad ads for healthcare violations and 17 million for illegal gambling violations last year.

It said it protected consumers against misleading ads that try to drive clicks and views by intentionally misleading people with false information like asking, “Are you at risk for this rare, skin-eating disease?” or offering miracle cures like a pill that will help you lose 50 pounds in three days without lifting a finger.

Google’s systems detected and disabled over 23,000 ‘self-clicking ads’ on its platforms this year as compared to only having to disable a few thousand of these bad ads last year. The report highlighted a dramatic increase in scamming activity in 2016 and close to 7 million bad ads were disabled for intentionally attempting to trick the Google detection systems, the report said.

Last year Google took action on 47,000 sites for promoting content and products related to weight-loss scams alone.